He has a child

Of course he should have told you. It's a huge part of his life, probably the biggest and most important thing. The conversation about having kids was the time to say something so it's pretty obvious he was deliberately withholding the info. From his perspective I do understand, people are put off at the thought of step parenting but that doesn't alter the fact that he basically deceived you. The onus was definitely not on you to ask! I would not progress this relationship based on the deceit.

Run

First he omitted the fact he had a child. Possibly forgivable, depending on why. The fact that he then blamed you for not asking is appalling. On a first date as well. Get rid immediately. Wonder what else he blamed his ex wife for. Perhaps she didn’t explicitly ask him not to cheat on her, so therefore it was ok. His turn of phrase absolutely stinks and it’s pretty obvious he isn’t nice.

He only admitted it when directly asked though.

He's done this on purpose. Probably because he thought it was a dealbreaker for you, which is a red flag itself.

Don't waste anymore time on him. Block him.

I had the same thing once, lots of messages back and forth for over a couple weeks about our hobbies/life etc then we went on a date - all fine and good arranged to see eachother the next week. I looked him up on facebook after the date and there he was with his young daughter.

I asked him about it and when he was thinking of telling me (I'd told him in conversations before the date I had no interest in having children) he said 'you didnt ask'. Absolute waste of my time. I get people not putting it in their profile but withholding the information (which in my view is very important information) is wrong.

Get rid OP.

Op, you are completely and utterly in the right here.

Don't let the usual MN contrary, argue black is white posters who crop up to make you doubt that.

He absolutely, 100% should have told you he has a child during the month of chatting. It is completely unnatural and unreasonable that he didn't.
You even discussed wanting children and how many.

It was not your responsibility to explicitly question him when he didn't tell you he has a child during all that communication - including about wanting kids, Christmas plans etc.

His response is BS. He's been caught out lying (by omission if we want to be picky) and he responded with a BS counter argument.
His argument is nonsense.

He's wasted a month of your (and his own).time but no doubt he'll keep on lying to women online if he thinks he'll get what he wants out of it.

How old is the kid? I think if it's young and it's a huge dominating part of this life he should have mentioned it, but if the kids is older & doesn't affect him greatly / is not that involved in his day to day I can see why it was 'forgotten' about to mention early on.

I really don't see how the op "badgered" this man about having a child.

He failed to mention he has one during a month of chatting.

They even discussed whether they'd like kids and how many FFS.
You wouldn't mention you already have one during that discussion?!

He lied by omission.

"You didn't ask" is bullshit.

He clearly thinks he's gets more opportunities with more women (and probably younger women) if he lies by omission about having a child. He thinks he's going to reel them in and they'll be invested enough after a while not to walk off when he reveals he has a child .... Whereas he thinks he wouldn't get the month of chatting and get to the first date with some women if he's honest.

Prepared to lie by omission about very important things to get what you want .... Is never a good baseline for a potential partner.

I had a man knock a few years of his age because he thought I'd be more likely to date him ......I got involved with him. I can tell you it was just an indication of a great deal of dishonesty, immaturity and dysfunction throughout the relationship.

I also find the lying by omission about his child to be very disrespectful to the child and his role as their father. Cold.
Most devoted fathers couldn't go one conversation without mentioning their child, let alone a month of them. And he can BS all he wants but he lied when you were discussing kids and he omitted to mention the slightly relevant fact that he already has one.

This.
I'm not "dating" anyone anymore, but if I did, that would definitely be a deal-breaker.

Given your discussion about wanting kids or not it's absolutely unacceptable not to mention his own child
The only explanations is he tried to intentionally deceive you or that his child is so insignificant to his life that it didn't factor to tell you- either one of these are red flags so my advice is to run

There’s no blaming involved you don’t want a man with a child end of

I wouldn't date a man with children. He didn't mention it for a reason.

However, we had discussions about whether we want kids, how many, etc., so it feels like he was being somewhat dishonest

He was.

That's lying by omission.

He should have said.

If wasn't up you you to ask.

He's being totally unreasonable & disengenuous in saying that.

It's a basic, very important thing.

And you even talked about kids....the exact time when he would have and should have naturally said he has one! You naturally assumed he didn't have any ... because he didn't say he had any, whey you were taking about whether you'd like kids and jow many.

I'd bail on this one - because he's dishonest and disengenuous.

I date men with children sometimes and the first thing I say to them is "I am more interested in you being a good parent to your child than a good partner to me".

I am only interested in the kind of man who would automatically, immediately, share about his child - not their name/identifying info, but what they are like, what they love, what their and his hopes are, what he is proud of, how they're worried about school or blah blah and how he's helping, a funny thing they said the other day...

A man who doesn't have that level of focus on his child as a huge, core part of his life is a dodgy, disappointing man. He will have disappointed at least one woman and one child already. Before you have children you can't quite appreciate the level of shoddiness it takes to put your children anywhere other than at the very heart of your life and attention.

Don't let him disappoint you.

his response was that it “never came up”

I call bullshit on that response. I can't imagine talking to a man for a month and he doesn't mention he has a child even in passing. Either he is a shit Dad or he deliberately didn't tell you as he knows it puts some women off.

No of course they’re not, but you don’t even know if the face matches the name or age given before you meet.

Anyone can set up a dating profile under any name, any age, with any photos. Catfish have literally made a show out of it and it’s so common they’ve been running for years now.

There’s always a risk as I say, minimising that risk as much as possible or as much as someone is comfortable with is okay.

But it’s naive to think that statistics provide the full picture. There has been lots of research and studies done over the years which suggests that those children who are abused by a woman, especially if the child is a boy, are less likely to come forward as there is more shame and stigma attached. Some of the comments on here would support that, “she’s safe because she’s a woman, she wouldn’t have done that” type thing- that’s the attitude of lots of people as you’ve shown yourself here, so it’s underreported.

When you actually look at the stats, 2015-2019 the number of this type of case averaged to about 40 per week. That’s still a big number.

There are risks with everything, and assessing risk is part of life, when there are children involved that’s the job of a parent and if disclosing the existence of a child on a first date rather than over messages with who knows who beforehand reduces that risk then that’s okay.

Not really. I mean they're not going to go on the date wearing an "I'm a sexual predator" t-shirt. Plenty of people are married to paedos for years without realising. You know not much more about them after one date than after chatting online. You also don't know they are who they say they are unless you're literally asking for photo ID.

Online dating is transactional AF but one of the only upsides is that you can avoid wasting time by setting out your NNs upfront.

Did the site asked about children and he responded none, or did he just not mentioned it?

If the former, he lied, and that's a concerning trait.

If the former though, I agree with him. Did he ask you? I assume not. I think nobody is wrong, you now know and it's not like you found out too late.

I don't think she's being hypocritical. There are evil women but let's be realistic about statistics, men are far more likely to be predators than women. It's not hypocritical to look at facts.